If you have blogging for any period of time, you know that there is no magical, secret that successful bloggers have which causes there blogs to be high-traffic, cash cows. The truth is that successful bloggers are simply sharing useful, interesting information and insights that people enjoy reading – on regular basis.
The difference between the successful and the unsuccessful ones are that the former writes with more flair than the latter. That’s right, if you want to really increase the traffic on your blog, you simply need to write good stuff! Readers engagement is the ultimate gauge for your blog posts’ quality.
Read on to learn more on how to write fabulous and fantastic – fab-tastic – blog posts that engage your readers.
Blogging Needs Regular Exercises, Too!
Here is a few creative writing exercises to get your brain kicked into creative mode, which will inevitably help you create better content and drive more traffic to your blog.
1. Write Short Stories
Now, you may have started blogging because you have a solid technical understanding of something that is about as far from creative as you can imagine. For example, maybe you run a blog on personal finances. Personal finance is typically a pretty dry, boring topic. We typically don’t tend to think of the personal finance world as very exciting, creative, and edgy. As a blogger and writer, however, your goal is to take an industry, such as personal finance, and make it exciting, creative, and edgy.
One way to hone that writing craft is to experiment with completely different modes of writing—such as creative writing.
Now, you are not going to write short stories in hopes of eventually publishing the story in The New Yorker! Your goal is to simply stimulate those creative muscles in your brain. If you actually take a few weeks to sketch out a story line, create a few characters, establish a conflict, and write out an actual story, you will be amazed at what effect it has on your blogging.
Writing short stories is a real challenge, and you will find that when you return to blogging, you can write with much greater ease!
2. Write Technical Articles On Topics You Don’t Understand
Choose an industry that you find somewhat interesting but do not understand very well. So, if you are running a personal finance blog, consider writing a strong, research-based piece on something totally unrelated, like effective corporate advertising.
Spend a few hours in research and write a really detailed piece that presents a strong argument of some form or fashion.
Again, the power here is that you are removing yourself from your normal mode of operation and expanding your mind a bit. Breaking out of the normal routine is a simple, but powerful tool to help stimulate your creative juices.
3. Freestyle Writing
This should be a staple of your daily routine if you are writing for a living. Free writing is an essential habit that helps stimulate your creative muscles every day.
And the great thing about free writing is that there is no pressure and there are definitely no rules. You simply write. Write about whatever comes to mind. You will be amazed how much brilliant material comes out of you during these unscripted writing sessions.
When you simply write for no reason, your subconscious tends to release incredible thoughts and ideas into your conscious mind, which you will, in turn, put down on paper. Many of these thoughts and ideas would never come to you if you didn’t take this time to intentionally write without purpose.
Finding Inspiration For Your Upcoming Blog Posts
Writing exercises are fine and dandy, but once the writer’s block hit, even experienced bloggers are having a hard time in finding the workaround.
The thing is, finding the inspiration to write regularly is challenging. But fear not, here are the likely sources that will help with keeping your blog fresh.
1. News Topics
Nearly everyone is interested in what’s going on in the news either on a local or international level. The news is all around you – especially on social. Don’t limit yourself to internet or paper sources, go out and find it for yourself. If there’s a charity run in your neighborhood, that’s news! If you see a car accident or are stuck in traffic, this is also news! Of course, the news you use has to be relevant to your blog but you get the picture.
Keep in mind, anytime you pull news from internet sources, there’s a good chance a majority of your subscribers have already read it elsewhere. You want new information that hasn’t been recycled a dozen different times before you whenever possible.
2. Follow the Trends
Reporting on trending topics can be both good and bad. If you have learned the information early enough and can repost it before every other blog does, this is good for you. If you learn about something after it’s been tweeted, retweeted and shared numerous times, there’s really no point in covering the topic unless you can bring something new to the article.
If you do choose to grab ideas from social networking sites or forms, be very careful not to get caught up in discussions like so many do. It’s great to offer an opinion but it is easy to get wrapped up for hours debating a topic which is not making the most of your time.
3. Share Opinions and Insights
When you find hot posts, rework them! You have to be very careful that they don’t come across as copycats and you certainly don’t want to raise any red flags in the duplicate department but you can take good content and put it into your own words.
Don’t be afraid to rewrite an article with an entirely different approach or with a point of view that disagrees with the original content if you have a different opinion.
Takeaway
If you are going to take blogging seriously, writing is a skill you have to intentionally seek to improve. Not only that, you need to hone your creativity – not only in the writing process, but also in finding the topics to blog about.
If you are struggling with keeping your blog updated with quality content, you are definitely not alone. Follow these few tips and you will undoubtedly increase the quality of your writing.
Cheers and good luck with your writing and blogging endeavor!
